The iron age is a sort of twilight between
the utter night of the stone and bronze periods and the morning of history. Of all the
metals iron is by far the most useful. This superiority it owes to its greater hardness,
which permits, especially when converted into steel, tools to be made of it which are
equally adapted for the most delicate operations and the roughest labours. With iron we
can trace the finest line on the precious stone, or hew a pathway into the bowels of the
mountain. When man came into possession of this metal, he wielded that one of all the
material instrumentalities which was the fittest to give him the mastery of the globe. Man
could now till the earth, quarry the rock, dig into the mine, clear the forest, build
cities, and enclose them within impregnable ramparts. But what, perhaps, most pleased the
Caledonian of that age was that he could now ride forth to battle in his war chariot,
brandishing his flashing weapons, and blazing in a coat of mail.

But if the first result of the introduction of iron,
as in the case of bronze, was the dismal one of increased battle-carnage, aftertimes were
to bring a compensation for this initial evil in the indefinite multiplication of the
resources of art. The half-trained savage, as he busies himself smelting the ore and
hammering the metal to forge therewith an instrument of slaughter, little dreams that he
is in reality a pioneer of peace. And yet it is so. He is making proof of a substances
whose many unrivalled properties need only to be known to convince man that he now holds
in his hand an instrument of such potency that compared with it Thors famous hammer
was but a reed. When the qualities of iron shall have been tested and ascertained, man
will be able to harness and set working in his service the mighty forces of steam and
electricity. And when this has come to pass, the savage shall have grown into a sovereign
with not an element in earth, in sea, or in air, which is not his willing subject and
servant. The mountain will part asunder to give him passage, the billows of the Atlantic
will support his steps, and the lightning will run on his errands to the ends of the
earth.

In Asia, it is probable, was the discovery
made that iron-stone is an ore, and can be smelted and wrought like the more ductile
bronze. At all events, it is in that quarter of the world that we come upon the first
historic traces of this metal. The Homeric heroes are seen fighting with weapons of bronze
and of iron. The dream of Nebuchadnezzar makes it undoubted that iron was known in Chaldea
in his day. This metal formed an important part of the colossal figure that stood before
the king in his sleep.1 From the ancient centresEgypt, Assyria, and
Phoeniciairon slowly made its way westward. Hesiod (B.C. 850) tells us that in his
day it had superseded bronze among the Greeks. The Aryan races, which were the first to
settle in Europe, were ignorant of metals. Not so the Celtae which succeeded them. They
excelled in the metallurgic arts, and if not the first teachers of the Romans in them,
they greatly advanced their knowledge and proficiency. The Norici, a Celtic tribe,
inhabiting near the Danube, and to whom is ascribed the art of converting iron into steel,
are believed to have supplied the Romans with iron weapons in their life and death
struggle with Carthage. In the days of Augustus, a Noric sword was as famous at Rome as a
"Damascus blade" or an "Andrew Ferrara" in after times. From the
Mediterranean iron travelled into northern Europe by the ordinary channels of commerce,
and finally made its appearance in Britain. The Caledonians were, doubtless, at first
dependent on the southern nations for their supply, but only for a time, for their country
abounds in iron ore; and from the day that they learned the art of smelting, they were
wholly independent of their neighbours for their supply of this useful metal. In the days
of Caesar the native mines yielded, we know, enough for the needs of the inhabitants.
Their implements and weapons were now of iron; their personal ornaments were formed of the
same metal, along with bronze, which though now dismissed from the service of the arts,
was still retained in the business of personal ornamentation.

The change which iron brought with it in the
arts and uses of life, was neither so sudden or so radical as that which was attendant on
the introduction of bronze. It was not to be expected that it would. The transition from
bronze to iron was not by any means so great as that from stone to bronze. The change now
effected was simply a change from an inferior metal to a higher. Many of the purposes
served by iron had been served by bronze, though not so well. Custom and prejudice were on
the side of the older metal. The savage would be slow to discard the tools which had
served him aforetime, or to cast aside the ornaments in which he had taken no little
pride, and which he might even deem more fitting than those, so lacking in glitter, as
ornaments of iron. Besides, iron at first was doubtless the more costly. Though the most
abundant of all the metals, its ore is the most difficult to smelt. It fuses only under an
intense heat. But its greater utility at last carried the day and brought it into general
use, first of all on the field of battle. Self-preservation being the first law of nature,
man will always make choice of the best material within its reach for the weapons with
which he defends himself. The bronze sword was adapted only for attack. The warrior who
was armed with it could deal a thrust, but he could not parry the return blow. His sword
of cast bronze was apt to shiver like glass, It was useless as a weapon of fence. This
revolutionised the battle-field; and we begin to find the record of that revolution in the
cists and cairns. The leaf-shaped bronze sword disappears and the iron brand comes in its
room. The shape of the weapon, too, is different. The sword has now a guarded handle. It
is clear that the warrior used it to parry the blow of his antagonist as well as seal a
thrust, and this necessitated some contrivance for guarding his sword-hand.2

From the battle-field and the dreadful work
there required of it, iron passed into the kindlier and lovelier uses of social and
domestic life. And for some of the uses to which it was now put, iron would seem to be but
little adapted, as, for instance, that of personal adornment. The modern beauty would
think iron a poor substitute for gold in the matter of jewelry, and would feel nothing but
horror in the prospect of appearing at the concert or in the ballroom as the horse appears
in the battle, harnessed in iron. But not so her sisters of two or three thousand years
ago. They deemed that their charms had not justice done them unless they were set off in
iron bracelets, iron anklets, and other trinkets of the same unlovely metal. Even their
lords, who were hardly less enamoured of personal ornaments that their ladies, wore,
Herodian tells us, their iron neck-collars and iron girdles as proudly as Roman his
insignia of the finest gold; another proof, by the way, of the adage that there is no
disputing about matters of taste. This much, however, can be said for the Caledonian, even
that the metal was novel, that it was probably rare and costly, and therefore was deemed
precious. Nor was the Caledonian done with these things when he died. He took them with
him to the grave, that he might appear in a manner befitting his rank in the spirit
worlds. He would wear them in Odins Hall.

Iron, too, was used in the coinage of our
country. The current money of our island in those days consisted in good part of iron
coined into small rings. So Caesar informs us. Iron money has this advantage over gold, it
better resists the tear and wear of use; and this may have recommended it to the
Caledonians. We can imagine our ancestors going a-marketing provided with a score of two
of these little iron rings. The Caledonian wishes to provide himself with a skin coat, or
a plaid of the newest pattern and brightest colours, or a hand-guarded iron sword, for
flint arrow-heads and bronze-tipped spear are now antiquated; or he would like to grace
his table with a drinking-cup, or a bowl, or other utensil turned on the wheel; or he
aspired to present his better-half with a bracelet or a finger-ring, and having counted
the cost and found that he is master of the requisite number of iron rings, he sets off to
effect the purchase. The seller hands over the goods and takes the rings in payment; they
are current money with the merchant. We moderns like to combine the beautiful with the
useful even in these every-day matters. It gratifies our loyalty as well as our taste to
see the image of our sovereign, bright and gracious, every time we handle her coin. The
Caledonian did not understand such subtle sentimentalities. The iron rings he traded with
bore neither image nor superscription. They did his turn in the market nevertheless, and
he was therewith content.

A gold coinage appears to have been not
altogether unknown even them. "Little doubt is now entertained by our best
numismatists," says Wilson, "that the coins of Comius and others of an earlier
date than Cunobeline, or the first Roman invasion, include native British mintage.3
There is no question at any rate that they circulated as freely in Britain as in Gaul, and
have been found in considerable quantities in many parts of the island. The iron or bronze
or copper ring money of the first century must therefore be presumed as only analogous to
our modern copper coinage, and not as the sole barbarous substitute for a minted
circulating medium."

These rings, in some cases, at least, were
interred with the dead, despite the saying of Scripture that we bring nothing with us into
the world and shall carry nothing out of it. The departing in these ages carried with them
the money with which they had traded in the markets of earth, or what portion of it their
friends judged necessary. Here it is beside them in their graves, doubtless, in the idea
that in some way or other it would be serviceable in the world beyond. The porter at the
gate of Valhalla might be the more quick to open if he had the prospect of a gratuity. And
the man to whom he gave admissionunless, indeed, this new world was altogether
unlike the one from which he had comewould be all the more welcome that he was known
to be not without assets, and might help his friends at a pinch. But not to dogmatise
about the theory that underlay these burial ceremonies, the fact is undoubted that these
little rings are found in the graves and cists of that ancient time lying alongside the
skeleton of their former owner. The discovery, however, makes us little the wiser. The
great enemy of iron is rust. The hardest of all the metals, it more quickly succumbs to
corrosion than any of the others. The ring money found in the old graves cannot be
described, because it cannot be handled and examined. It is found, on the opening of the
tomb, to be nothing but a circlet of brown rust. The thin gold ornaments dug up at
Mycenae, and now in the museum at Athens, are as old, at least, as our ring money, and yet
they can be seen and handled at this day. Not so the iron coinage of our forefathers. Not
infrequently does it happen, when their graves are opened, that the small rings remain
visible for a few minutes, and then, along with their companion skeleton, dissolve in
ashes.

The cists and graves testify to the new face
that began to appear on our northern and barbarous country on the coming of iron. With it
the streaks of the historic dawn begin to be seen on the horizon. The isolation of the
land is now well nigh at an end. The Britons in the south are seen crossing and recrossing
the channel in frequent intercourse with their neighbors and kinsfolk the Belgae. The arts
drawn them together. They understand one anothers speech. The coinage of the two
nations passes from hand to hand on both sides of the sea. The tides of commerce flow more
freely. The pulse of trade is quickened. State necessities, too, draw them to each other,
and tend to cement their friendship. Rome is advancing northward, and wherever she comes
she imposes her yoke, and the Britons, desirous, no doubt, of keeping the danger from
their own door, send secret assistant to the Belgae in resisting the advances of their
great enemy. The influences which this contact and commingling make operative in the south
of the island extend into the north, bringing therewith a certain refinement to the
Caledonian, and multiplying the resources of his art, of which we begin to find traces in
that only writing he has left behind himhis cairns and cists, to wit. His
art-designs are better defined, and also more graceful. He has better material to work
with, and he does better work. He is gathering round him new appliances both for use and
for ornament, and may now be said to stand on the level which the nations of Asia had
reached five centuries before, or it may be earlier. His fighting equipage is now
complete. He appears on the battlefield in his war-chariot; and when his battles come to
an end, he takes it with him to the grave. For when we uncover his barrow, there are the
iron wheels that were wont to career over the field, carrying dismay into the hostile
ranks, resting in darknessat peace, like the skeleton alongside. There, too, is his
shield with its iron rim and studs, together with his sword, the prey, all of them, of the
same devouring rust, but telling their tale, all the same, of bloody conflicts long since
over. We have a glimpse, too, into the boudoirs of the period. We see the beauty
performing her toilet with the help of a polished iron mirror; for when we open her cist,
there, resting by her side, in the dark land, is the identical mirror in which she was
wont to contemplate the image of her beauty when she lived beneath the sun; and there,
too, are the trinkets of gold, of amber, and of other material which she wore above
ground, and which she is entitled to claim in the world into which she has now passed.4

Of the thrifts and industries practised in
the Scotland of those days, we have memorials not a few treasured up, unwittingly, long
ago for our instruction in this latter age. Let us bestow a glance upon them. We have seen
how the Caledonian could build, sagaciously planting his winter house far down in the warm
earth, and summer retreat of twigs hard by in the open air. Now that he is in possession
of iron tools, many improvements, doubtless, take place in the accommodation and
furnishing of his hut. But he knows also to weave. The loom of that age, like its plough,
was of the simplest construction, existing only in its rudiments. It survives, however, in
the cairns and ciststhe great storehouse of pre-historic recordsand with it
specimens of the cloth woven upon it. Here is the long-handed, short-toothed comb with
which the thread, having been passed through the warp, was driven home. This, and the beam
to which the threads were fastened, formed the loom. In the tumuli are found portions of
cloth of a quality far from contemptible, and sometimes of bright and even beautiful
colours. To create such fabrics on so rude a loom, argues both deftness and taste on the
part of the workman. To pass from the weaver of the iron age to the potter, we trace, too,
an advance in his art. The cups and vases dug up are more elegantly shaped and by means of
a few waving lines, have a simple but graceful decoration given them. The art of glazing
potterythe colour commonly being greenhas now been found out. From the
potters wheel we come to an instrument of still greater importance in domestic life.
The grain-stones are now laid aside, and the quern has come into their room. May we not
infer from this that a greater breadth of corn has now began to be grown, and that the
natives depend more on the field than on the chase for their subsistence, and may have
regaled themselves on the same dish that may yet be seen on the breakfast tables of our
own day. Nor are the cists silent respecting so humble an actor on the scene as the dog.
The attendant of man in all stages of his career, we know that he followed the steps and
looked up into the face of the Caledonian, savage though he was, for here the bones of dog
and master lie together in the same grave. And when the Caledonian was no longer a savage,
though still a barbarian, he had broken to his use, and attached to his person and
service, a yet nobler animalthe horse, to wit. For here in the same barrow, beside
the bones of the warrior, lie those of the steed that bore him into the battle, and mayhap
carried him safely out of it. He shares the honour as he shared the perils of his master.

Nor did beauty in those days, any more than
in ours, neglect the labours of disdain the aids of the toilet. Here are the whalebone
combs, the bone and iron pins, and the articles of gold and amber and jet, which were
employed in the arranging of the hair and the adorning of the person. These remain,
butsuch is the irony of the timethe charms they helped to set off have long
since faded. The men of those days, too, made merry on occasion. Here are the
drinking-cups, the goblets, and the vases that figured at their banquets, once bright and
sparkling, but now encrusted with the rust of two thousand years and more. In vain we
question these witnesses of the long past carousals touching the liquor that filled them,
and the warriors and knights that sat round the board and quaffed, it, while the song of
bard or the tale of palmer mingled in the loud din of the banqueting-hall. The climate of
Scotland did not favour then, any more than in our day, the cultivation of the vine; but
when denied the juice of the grape, man has seldom been at a loss to find a substitute,
and commonly a more potent one. Our ancestors, I like the Germans, regaled themselves on a
beverage brewed from a mixture of barley and honey, termed mead; and, though stronger than
the simple wines of southern lands, it was greatly less so than the potent drinks with
which the art of distillation has since supplied their descendants.

The cuisine of the Caledonians of that period
was far from perfect. But, if their food was cooked in homely fashion, it was varied and
nutritious, as the long preserved relics of their feasts testify. The museum at Bulak
shows us on what luxuries the Egyptians of four thousand years ago regaled themselves. The
buried hearth stones of our country show us the dainties on which the Scottish
contemporaries of these old Egyptians were used to feed. The wheat-fields of Manitoba and
Transylvania had not been opened to them. To the vineyards of Oporto and Burgundy they had
no access. Of the tea and coffee plantations of China and Java they did not even dream.
But their own island, little as had as yet been done to develop its resources, amply
supplied their wants. They could furnish their boards from the cereals of their straths,
the wild berries of their woods, the fish of their rivers, the milk and flesh of their
herds, and the venison of their moors and mountains. There is not a broch in Orkney that
does not contain the remains of the rein or red deer. The red deer does not exist in
Orkney at this day; the animal continued down to about the twelfth century.

A marked feature in the Scottish landscape of
those days was the broch. The broch was peculiar to Scotland; not a single instance of
this sort of structured is to be found out of the country. The brochs were places of
strength, and they tell of hostile visits to which Scotland was then liable, and which
made it necessary for its inhabitants to provide for their safety. The brochs were build
of dry stones; mark of tool is not to be seen upon them; nevertheless, their materials,
though neither hewn nor embedded in mortar or lime, fit in perfectly, and make their walls
compact and solid. When danger approached, we can imagine the whole inhabitants of a
district leaving the open country and crowding into the broch with their goods, and
finding complete protection within their strong enclosure. They were circular ramparts, in
short, planted thick in some placesthe districts doubtless, most liable to
incursionand they must have given a fortified look to the land. Their average height
was 50 feet, their diameter 40, and the thickness of their wall from 12 to 15 feet. Their
door was on the ground level, but, for obvious reasons, usually narrow and low. It was
little over 3 feet in height and 2 in width. They were open to the sky within. Their thick
wall was honey-combed with chambers, placed row above row, with a stair ascending within,
and giving access to the circular chambers. Their windows looked into the area of the
broch; their exteriors presented only an unbroken mass of building. In some instances they
were provided with a well and a drain. There is not now one entire broch in Scotland, but
their ruins are numerous. Not fewer than 370 have been traced in the country, mostly to
the north of the Caledonian valley. More may have existed at one time, but their ruins
have disappeared. The construction of these fabrics, so perfectly adapted to their
purpose, argues a considerable amount of architectural skill on the part of their
builders, and also a certain advance in civilization. The discovery of Roman coins, and
the red glazed pottery of Roman manufacture in these brochs, indicate their existence and
use down to the occupation of the southern part of Britain by the Romans.

There remains one point of great moment. What
knowledge did the inhabitants of Scotland of that age possess of a Supreme Being and a
future state? This is the inner principle of civilization, and, dissociated from it, no
civilization is of much value, seeing it lacks the capability of being carried higher than
a certain stage, or of lasting beyond a very brief period. What hold was this principle
acquiring on our ancestors? We have only general considerations to guide us here.

Noah, before sending his sons forth to people
his vast dominions, doubtless communicated to them, as we have said above, those Divine
traditions which were their best inheritance, and which the posterity of Seth had carried
down from Eden. He taught them the spirituality and unity of God; the institution of the
Sabbath and marriagethe two foundation-stones of society; the fall of man, the
promise of a Saviour, and the rite of sacrifice. These great doctrines they were to carry
with them in their several dispersions, and teach to their sons. As one who had come up
out of the waters of the delugethe grave of a worldthe words of Noah, spoken
on the morrow of the tremendous catastrophe, would deeply impress themselves on the minds
of his sons, and would remain for some considerable time, distinct and clear, in the
memory and knowledge of their posterity. How long they did so we have no means of
certainly knowing. Without a written record, and left solely to oral transmission, these
doctrines, so simple and grand, and fully apprehended by Noahs immediate
descendants, would gradually come to be corrupted by additions, and obscured by allegory
and legend. We know it to have been so as a fact. Hence the world of heathen mythology
which grew up. And grafted itself on the men and events recorded in early Scripture. When
the tenth or twentieth generation of the men who had sat at the feet of the great
Patriarch arrived on the shores of Britain, it is natural to suppose that parts of the
primeval revelation were lost, and that what of it was preserved was greatly obscured. But
in the darkest eras of our country, as we shall afterwards see, the rites of the worship
were publicly observed. And with worship there are necessarily associated two ideasa
Supreme Being, and a life to come.

There is one fact which throws a pleasing
light on these remote times of our countryNo idol or graven image has ever been dug
up in our soil. The cists and cairns of our moors contain the implements of the hunter and
of the warrior, but no traces of the image-markersno gods of wood and stone. The
museums of Egypt are stocked by the thousand with the gods her inhabitants worshipped in
old time, and scarce can we cast up a shovelful of earth in Cyprus, but we find in it some
memorial of pagan idolatry. In the lands of Italy, of Greece, of Assyria, and of India,
long-buried deities are ever and anon cropping up and showing themselves in the light of
the day, but no such phenomenon has ever occurred on the soil of Scotland. Ancient
Caledonia would seem, by some means or other, to have been preserved from a taint which
had polluted almost every other land. Relics of all sorts have been found in our soil, but
never idol of British manufacture; nor is one such to be seen in any of our museums.
"The relics," says Wilson, "recovered from the sepulchral mounds of the
great valley of the Mississippi, as well as in the regions of Mexico and Yucatan, display
numerous indications of imitative skill. The same is observable in the arts of various
tribes of Africa, Polynesia, and of other modern races in an equally primitive state. What
is to be specially noted in connection with this is, that both in the ancient and modern
examples the imitative arts accompany the existence of idols, and the abundant evidences
of idolatrous worship. So far as we know, the converse holds true in relation to the
primitive British races, and as a marked importance is justly attached to the contrasting
creeds and modes of worship and policy of the Allophylian and Aryan nations, I venture to
throw out this suggestion as not unworthy of farther consideration.5

May we not infer from a circumstance so
anomalous and striking that the ancient Briton had not lapsed into the gross polytheism
top which the Greeks and Romans abandoned themselves. Lying off the highway of the world,
and shut in by their four seas, they would seen to have been exempt, to a large extent,
from the corrupting influences which acted so powerfully on the classic nations around the
Mediterranean. They stood in "the old paths, while the latter, yielding to an
idealistic and passionate temperament, plunged headlong into a devotion which at length
crowded their cities with temples and altars, and covered their valleys and hills with
gods and goddesses in stone.

We do not lay much stressalthough some
lay a great dealupon the mode of burial practised by the ancient Briton as a means
of spelling out his creed. His weapons were interred along with the warrior.
"Why?" it has been asked. "Because," it has been answered, "it
was an article of his belief that he would need them in the spirit world." In times
still later, the war horse of the chief, his favourite hound, his attendants in the chase,
or his followers on the battlefield, were all interred in company, that all might together
resume, in a future life, the occupations and amusements in which they had been wont to
exercise themselves in this. With fleeter foot would they chase the roe and hunt the boar.
With even keener delight would they mingle in the strife of battle, and as on earth, so
again in the world beyond, they would forget the toil of the chase and the peril of the
conflict in the symposia of the celestial halls.

It was not within the gates of Valhalla only
that the departed warrior was permitted to taste these supreme joys. Between him and the
world in which he has passed his former existence, there was fixed no impassable gulf, and
he had it in his power to return for a space to earth, and vary the delights of the upper
sky with occasional pastime under "the pale glimpses of the moon." Popular
belief pictured the spectral warrior mounted on spectral steed, returning from the halls
of Odin and entering his sepulchral barrow and becoming for a while its inhabitant. There,
joined by those with whom he had fought, and hunted, and revelled, and whose bones lay in
the same funereal chamber with his own, he would renew those carousals with which it had
been his wont to close a day of battle or of chase during the period of his mortal life.
The tumulus or barrow was sacred to his memory. His spirit was believed to haunt it, and
might on occasion hold fellowship with surviving relations and friends who chose to visit
him in it. The wife would enter it and lie down by the side of her dead lord, in the idea
of having communion with him, or she would bring meat and drink to regale him, which she
would place in little cups provided for the purpose. Helge, one of the heroes of the Edda,
returned from the hall of Odin on horseback, and entered his tumulus accompanied by a
troop of horsemen. There his wife visited him, and for some time kept him company in his
grave. This superstitious idea protected these barrows from demolition, and to it is owing
the preservation of so many of them, forming as they do the only contemporaneous and
authentic record we possess of the age to which they belong. On the advent of
Christianity, burial with "grave-goods" ceased.

It is one of the lessons of history that
unaided man, whatever his stage of civilization, always paints the life to come in colours
borrowed from the life that now is. His heaven is the picture of earth. It is a freshened,
brightened, glorified life which he promises himself, but still, in its essentials and
substance, an earthly life. The thinking of the mightiest among the Greeks on the question
of the life that is to come, moved, after all, in the same low groove with that of our
early forefathers. The philosopher of Athens, when dying, fancied himself departing to
another Academe, where the same subtle speculations, and the same intellectual combats,
which had ministered so much pleasurable excitement to him in the Porch or in the Grove,
would be resumed, with this difference, that there his powers would be immensely refined
and invigorated, and consequently should have attendant on their exercise a far higher and
purer happiness than he had ever tasted here. The idea of a new nature, with
occupations and pleasures fitted to that new nature, was an idea unknown alike to
the Greek and to the barbarian. It is a doctrine revealed in the Bible alone.

FOOTNOTES

1. It is curious to mark that the order in
which the four metals are arranged in the image of Nebuchadnezzar is the same with that,
generally speaking, of their discovery and prevalent use in the world. In the image the
head of gold came first; next the breast and arms of silver; then the belly and thighs of
brass; and fourth, the legs of iron. In the earliest days gold was the most plentiful
metal, though, from its great softness, of little practical use. It is found frequently
with the bronze in our cists, and recent explorations in the plain of Troy attest its
great abundance in that age. Next comes silver, though scarce, and represented by the
short-lived kingdom of Medo-Persia. Third comes the period of bronze and brass, as
exemplified in the powerful brazen-coated Greeks. And fourth comes the iron kingdom of
Rome. These four metals came into use and dominancy in the same order in which they are
seen in the image. The historic eras are, the golden, the silvern, and brazen, the iron.

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